Do or Do Not
by JadedofMara
Summary: Repost. It's finished! AU from the Arrest scene in ep III, Anakin Skywalker's body lies in a coma on Coruscant in the year 14390, while his mind lives on as the infamous Lord Vader.
1. Chapter 1

Star Wars: Do or Do Not

**Note:** For the names of days and months and such, please check my personal Galactic Standard Dating (GSD) system of names. I made it up myself, and I own it.

**Discalimer:** I don't own Star Wars, however much I wish I do.

**A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…**

**STAR WARS:**

Do or Do Not

By: Jaded of Mara

With the death of General Grievous, the Clone Wars have officially ended. The Supreme Chancellor, Palpatine of Naboo, has been ordered to relinquish his emergency powers. He has refused. The Jedi Council has found sufficient evidence to support the claim that Palpatine is the feared Sith Lord, Darth Sidious. Four Jedi, including Masters Kit Fisto and Mace Windu have been dispatched to arrest the Chancellor and ensure that he stands trial for crimes against the Galaxy. Palpatine, Lord Sidious, has resisted arrest and killed three Jedi, leaving only Master Windu, whom he engages in a duel.

Meanwhile, Jedi Master Obi-wan Kenobi returns to Coruscant in his Jedi fighter, leaving Commander Cody on Upatau to secure the separatist leaders and transport them to the capitol. He is met at the Jedi Temple by Senator Padmé Amidala, who is looking for her husband, Anakin Skywalker.

Anakin has left the Temple to go to the rescue of Chancellor Palpatine…

Chapter One

Sabers

_The office of the Supreme Chancellor of the Republic, Coruscant_

_Icel, fourteenth day of the month of Ilex, year 14390_

_"You are under arrest, __**My Lord**__."_

"_Anakin! I told you it would come to this! I was right! The Jedi are taking over!"_

"_The oppression of the Sith will never return. You have lost."_

Anakin Skywalker was speechless. Jedi Master Mace Windu stood over Anakin's friend and mentor, purple lightsaber drawn and pointed directly at Palpatine's throat. Despite being so close to certain death, one corner of Palpatine's mouth curled up into a sneer.

"No!" he hissed, eyes flashing yellow in his rage. "No! _You_ must die!"

Blue Force lightening shot from Palpatine's fingers.

"He's a traitor!" Palpatine roared, a particularly strong jolt of lightning emphasizing the accusation.

"He's the traitor!" Windu let out a moan of pain as a fork of energy missed his blade and shot into his chest.

"I have the power to save the one you love," Palpatine reminded Anakin, whose confusion had reached such a pitch that his vision had begun to swim. "You must choose!"

"Don't listen to him, Anakin!" Master Windu yelled. "There's only two ways this can go. Sith or Jedi, Anakin. Which are you?"

Anakin never answered. His moment of indecision gone, he strode forward with purpose. _Kill the Jedi traitor, and take your rightful place by my side._ Palpatine's voice echoed in his ears.

_Kill the Jedi traitor._

With pleasure.

The Force swelled through the room, the combined efforts of Jedi Master, Sith Lord, and Chosen One creating a whirlpool effect. Anything not bolted down flew through the air erratically.

Anakin stepped up beside the battling pair, each so absorbed in the fight that he went unnoticed. He raised his lightsaber, ignited its azure blade, and swung it through the air.

A beautifully sculpted Nubian table ornament connected with the back of Anakin's head, and everything went still.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

Voices

_4Shores of the Great Lava Flow, Mustafar_

_Icel, fourteenth day of Ilex, year 14390_

Like the flames that had engulfed him mere moments before, hot agony coursed through Darth Vader's veins, pooling in excruciating conflagrations around the stumps where his one human arm and legs had once been. Vision fading in and out of focus, it took all of Vader's great physical strength and the full depth of his amazing connection to the Dark Side of the Force to keep him breathing.

Suddenly, through the haze of darkness gathering at the corners of his mind, Vader could perceive… _something, _though what exactly it was Vader neither knew or cared. A low moan squeezed itself out of Vader's scorched throat, as he attempted to block all of his senses and concentrate on staying alive.

The voices—for it was a barely-audible conversation that was reaching Vader's ears—would not be silenced, however. If anything, they seemed to grow louder the more Vader tried to block them, until finally, when all of his senses but that of pain—the pain could not be shunted, no matter how hard Vader tried—were deadened, he could make out what they were saying.

"**Is he going to be alright, Master Healer?"**said a worried male voice, one that sounded disturbingly familiar. Inwardly, Vader frowned. Who was the man worried about, and why was the man worried?

"**That's actually what I asked you here to talk about,"**a different, slightly nasal male voice said. **"He seems to have slipped into a deep coma, and all of our attempts at awakening him have failed."**

"**Did the blow to his head cause brain damage?"** A new voice, female this time, joined the conversation.

"**Not as far as we can tell, though we haven't done a brain scan yet."**

"Lord Vader?" asked the gravelly voice of Emperor Palpatine. "Can you hear me?"

Vader opened his eyes, wheezing, and the full power of the Emperor's Darkness swept through him, taking awareness and providing blissful sleep…

_Private chambers of the Lord Darth Vader, onboard the Super Star Destroyer, _Executor

_Obis, twenty-sixth day of the month of Lota, year 14394_

"**I'm sorry, sir, milady. Only family members are permitted to see critical patients."**

Darth Vader jerked out of a fitful sleep. The voices were back again. It had been years since he'd heard them, and he had begun to wonder if they had been real, or mere figments of a tortured mind. Anxiously, he reached out to them, determined to hear something that might identify them.

"**I am his… brother-in-law."**_**Whose**__ brother-in-law?_

"**But you, milady. Are you a relation?" **_A relation to __**whom?**_

"**Yes,****I'm… his wife." **_**Whose **__wife? _

The comm beeped loudly, and Vader turned to answer it, frustrated at the interruption. "Vader here."

"Sir! We've located a Jedi, sir!"

Vader sighed, though the sound couldn't be heard over the noise of the breathing apparatus in his hyperbaric chamber.

"Prepare my shuttle."

_Cockpit of the Lord Darth Vader's Personal TIE interceptor, in battle over Yavin_

_Agga, nineteenth day of the month of Garum, year 14410_

"**Hello. I didn't expect to find you here."**

"_**WHAT?!**_"

It wasn't being shot at that shocked Darth Vader. Even though he hadn't been in a real dogfight for a very long time, he could still handle being within centimeters of death without losing his target. No, the thing that made Vader lose his concentration long enough to let that Force strong X-wing pilot get away was this:

The voices had returned.

It had been sixteen years since the last time they had come to him, and after all that time, they still made no sense whatsoever.

Returning his mind to the battle before him, Vader watched in horror as the Rebel pilot before him made his lethal shot. Shooting away from the Death Star as fast as he could so as not to be destroyed in the battle station's death throes, Vader turned his thoughts to the conversation going on inside his head.

"**Have you told anyone about… you know?"** A loud explosion echoed in Vader's cockpit, and the blast shielding lowered completely for a few seconds. When Vader opened his eyes, the Death Star was gone. The voices, however, didn't even notice, and continued their conversation.

"**No, I'm going to wait until he wakes up, so he can tell them himself."**_ Tell __**who**__ himself?_

"**Thank you."**_ Why can't you use someone else's head as a commlink? _

There was an abnormally long pause, and then a sharp crackle. "Lord Vader? Do you read me? Lord Vader?"

_Thank you! _

"This is Vader."

"Sir, the Death Star no longer appears on any of our scopes!"

"The Rebels have succeeded in destroying it. Transmit your coordinates now."

"What?"

"I have no time for useless questions. Transmit your position _now!_"

"Yes, milord."

_Bridge of the Super Star Destroyer _Executor

_Taaf, fifth day of the month of Ludis, year 14413_

Darth Vader stood nervously on the bridge of his personal Super Star Destroyer, gazing out the forward view port at the flat, circular freighter on which his son was exiting the system. He rounded on Admiral Piett.

"Did your men deactivate the hyper drive on the _Millennium Falcon_?" Vader asked, anxious about the completion of his orders for the first time in his long command.

"Yes, milord," Piett answered promptly, controlling his emotions well.

"Good. Prepare the boarding party, and set your weapons to 'stun'." With a curt nod of acknowledgement form Piett, Vader turned back to the freighter. Luke's agony was staggering, and Vader was finding it hard to bear at such a close range. _What can I do to win him over?_

The voices, for once, decided to be helpful.

"**You might want to try talking **_**to**_** him, instead of **_**about**_** him." **

Immediately, Vader reached for the slight bond that was growing between Father and Son. "_Luke,"_ he called, reaching for that gloriously bright presence on the Cornelian freighter.

"_F-father?"_ came Luke's tentative thought-voice.

_Thank you, merciful Force!_

"_Son, come to me!"_

There was no answer.

_The Emperor Palpatine's observation post, __battle station codename Death Star II, in orbit over Endor_

_Icel, fourteenth day of the month of Ilex, year 14414_

"Father!_ H-help… me! __**Please!!**_"

Blue sith lightning snaked from the Emperor's fingers and bounded across the room to the writhing body of Luke Skywalker, reminding Vader of another fourteenth of Ilex, so very long ago. Vader struggled to his feet, the pain of yet another lost limb weakening him greatly. In that one, brief moment, the moment when Luke had skirted the edge of Darkness and walked the line between Jedi and Sith, Vader had felt a profound sense of sorrow, a sense of… _wrongness_ in Luke's Force signature. For a moment, Vader had wondered if that was what his own Force presence felt like.

The lightening stopped as quickly as it began. An evil, vicious, predatory sneer curled Sidious' lip as he stared down at Luke.

"And now, young Jedi," he coos dangerously, in a simpering voice.

"You will die."

A low, wheezing moan squirmed out of Luke's throat, and Palpatine grinned. Raising his arms high, the Sith Lord cackled and sent bolt after bolt of Death into Luke's body. Even the crackle of electricity was drowned in the high, blood curdling screams of excruciating pain that echoed in the room. Indecision tore at Vader, shredding his already broken heart, as his gaze flicked back and forth, from Sith to Jedi.

"**Anakin…" **Vader jumped. _Padmé?_

"**Anakin, come back to me."**

Sith or Jedi? Master or Son? There was no choice, no indecision.

Sidious or Luke?

Luke.

An echo of something he had said to Luke earlier in the fight came back to him.

_There is no conflict._

No, there wasn't.

_Landing bay 2583B, battle station codename Death Star II, in orbit over Endor_

_Icel, fourteenth day of the month of Ilex, year 14414_

Alarms blared. Normally dignified Imperial officers raced for ships they hadn't the slightest idea how to fly.

Nobody noticed a slight, black clad Rebel dragging a Sith Lord across the hanger bay floor.

Luke Skywalker pulled Darth Vader halfway up a lowered hatchramp of a shuttle, and paused for a moment to catch his breath. Darth Vader took the moment to speak.

"Luke," he rumbled, and the Rebel looked up. "Help me take this mask off."

Luke started to protest. "But you'll die!"

"Nothing can stop that now," the Dark Lord replied. "Just once, let me look on you with my own eyes."

Luke nodded, acknowledging the truth of Vader's words. Gently, he removed the domed helmet and laid it on the ground. With a hiss of escaping air, the mask was set inside the helmet, and Anakin Skywalker took his first breath in twenty-four years.

"Now go, my son," he rasped, his voice a far cry from the sound of the vocorder. "Leave me." Luke shook his head.

"No. You're coming with me. I can't leave you here! I've got to save you!"

Anakin smiled. "You already have, my son," he whispered, voice growing faint. "You were right. You were right about me. Tell your sister. You were right."

"Father—," Luke began, but it was too late.

Anakin Skywalker let out a long breath, and collapsed.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

Reawakening

_First Coruscant Hospital, ICU, room 8324_

_eighth day of the month of , year 14390_

There was no abrupt awakening. Instead, consciousness drifted through the layers of black, replacing them one by one until all the dark was gone. Once the light had come, awareness was soon to follow.

Anakin Skywalker left his eyes closed. His head hurt something awful.

Inwardly, Anakin frowned. Death wasn't supposed to hurt.

Was it?

Something that a field medic had once said to him during battle came rushing back.

'_Be grateful for the pain, son,'_ he'd said, just before moving on to the others. '_It means you're alive.'_

_Am I alive?_ Anakin thought, daring to believe.

**You can't be alive, **said a snide little voice in the back of his head.** You died, remember?**

_But my head hurts! _Anakin argued back. _And pain means you're alive!_

_**I'm**__**alive!!**_

A door whooshed open. Anakin made himself lay very, very still, the knowledge of his survival singing through his veins.

"Anakin…" a female voice whispered.

Anakin's heart stopped.

_Padme!_

"He's looking better today," a male commented.

Anakin felt as if a hand had reached into his chest and ripped out his heart. He knew that voice.

It was Obi-wan.

_Maybe I am dead._

Obi-wan didn't sound the same as Anakin had last heard it, gruff from age and the harsh sands of Tatooine. No, if anything, Obi-wan sounded exactly as he had on Mustafar, twenty four years before.

There was only one thing to do.

Anakin cracked his eyes open.

"_Anakin!_" Padme shrieked, throwing herself at him. As Anakin gently patted her hair, he stared up at Obi-wan.

"Good morning, Anakin," he said with a grin, his turquoise eyes twinkling. He ran a hand through his auburn hair. "You gave us all quite a scare."


End file.
